Forest Bathing and What it Means to Connect with Trees
An Interview with Zarah Cabañas by Nikimbre Daniels of the American Herbalists Guild
Aug 17, 2022
(edited for print)

Check out the full video interview here!

Nikimbre:  Hello, plant lovers and thank you for joining the American Herbalists Guild. My name is Nikimbre Daniels and I am here with Zarah Cabañas. Zarah is the founder of Space Acres Botanicals. It is located in the Catskills of New York. Zarah, thanks for joining us today. 

Zarah: Thanks so much for having me. 

Nikimbre: So let's just dive right into this. 

Zarah: Yeah. 

Nikimbre: I'm so fascinated with this concept. It has become a phenomenon over the last two years. Well, according to me it has. And so I'm intrigued on your concept of what forest bathing is. I know that you are a video artist, and…at Symposium this year is you'll be hosting a virtual forest bath experience. And so give us your take on forest bathing. 

Zarah:  Again, thanks for having me. Forest bathing is this very simple concept where a person spends unguided time, unstructured time, in a forest. It's a wellness practice, and it's spending time in the forest in an unhurried way that lets you kind of unpack your senses and connect to trees. Very simple, very easy in concept but a lot of times people have a hard time with it, right?…. In Japan, it's called Shinrin Yoku, this idea of connecting with the forest. And there's been a lot of research around Shinrin Yoku and it started in the eighties but my personal take on it is that anyone can really do it. It's born in us. It's an innate thing that we know how to do, It's just that we need to carve out time for it. 

Nikimbre:  You touched on something there for me, it was innate <laugh> and carving out the time to do it…. Give us a little bit of a snippet of what it's like for you to host these forest bathing experiences for folks right there in the Catskills….. 

Zarah:  So being here in the Catskills, at some point you start realizing there are people who have always known the forest. There are people who can break it down. There are people who know the trees, there are people who know the berries, there are people who've known the seasons. It's this, it's the knowledge that has always been here. And when you spend more time with the trees and you start realizing that the trees have always been there, a certain calm can fall over you and a certain kind of acceptance that time is much greater than you. And a certain kind of silence can come and wash over you. And a certain kind of way of connecting that has nothing to do with your left brain starts happening. 

And it just takes a very quick moment to let it happen. So the way we tend to practice forest bathing here at Space Acres is one as a practice of the senses. You go out, commit to an unhurried period of time where you say hello to the forest and you either choose a sit spot, choose something to focus on. You can choose a sense—visual sense, the sense of smell—find a place to sit down and just let yourself observe yourself being in the present. And if a person can let that happen, pretty soon people find that they kind of have an instinct to know what to do next and then what to do next. And pretty soon an hour passes by and pretty soon two hours pass by and pretty soon you're ready to leave the forest. And it's a wonderful kind of transformative experience that is very, very simple. 

Now, I have to say, and I know I mentioned this before, I am certainly not the expert on forest bathing. I don't do any of the clinical studies. I certainly have read quite a bit about it. I know it lowers your cortisol levels. I know that the essential oils in trees are literally boosting the immune system. There's a lot of scientific research that backs up that connecting with trees is very good for people. But what I have observed as a video artist, as a mom of two, is that this practice of being in the forest is something that can't be optional <laugh>. 

It's something that really cuts through to the heart of how we connect to the earth and how we can find perspective on how we relate to each other on this planet simply by sitting there and carving out time to be in the woods…. It's a communion with the trees…is what it is. And if framed in that way, I mean wow mean the possibilities of connection are kind of endless. 

Nikimbre:  And you know, saying the possibilities are endless leads me into the aspect that you bring to this whole experience at symposium, which is the virtual aspect of it…. Could you also go into the virtual aspect of forest bathing that you'll be bringing to symposium this year? 

Zarah:  As a video artist all you're doing is connecting [with people] through the projection, through the screen, through an immersive environment. So in my video art practice, I often tend to work live in concerts, creating improvisational psychedelic visuals for music as a way to connect people to each other in the music. The beauty about working with trees and the beauty of taking on the concept of forest bathing as a virtual experience as a video artist is that…there's just no barrier. The concept of forest bathing in the physical realm when you're talking about walking in the woods and really using your senses, opening yourself up to it, these are the kinds of things I would say aren't necessarily trying to be replicated or substituted for in a virtual experience of a forest bath. You certainly can't get smell through projection certainly it's a completely different experience.

But what's amazing about it is that because people are so tuned into trees, as people, seeing foliage and hearing a forest can immediately and does immediately connect to people's innate sense of being. And so when you talk about the virtual aspect of forest bathing, to be able to bring the forest to someone, for example, who for some reason or another through immobility issues or just by being stuck somewhere being on a business trip, being on a plane, being just unable to get to a little slice of a forest. For me, being able to bring that to someone…there's something really powerful to that to be able to say I see you and this is intentionally meant for you…. 

Nikimbre:  Without giving too much away, as far as the experience that one will have with you hosting the virtual forest bathing experience at this year's symposium, give us a little snippet of what one could experience or will experience during this. 

Zarah:  Okay, so I'm so glad you asked this because this is a project that I've been shooting all year…. It's very site specific both where I'm shooting it, which is in the southwest Catskills of New York to where I'm showing it. This video piece is specifically intended for the 33rd annual Symposium in Bethesda, Maryland, which by the way is in my hometown. So that's very special <laugh>. So the gift for me is I can take a bit of this beautiful forest and shoot with the intention of a virtual forest bath throughout the seasons and present it to all of you lovely, amazing herbalists in this amazing gathering. 

So this is something that I've been going out every month I've been collecting. I've been doing the forest bathing myself as I meditate with my very mobile video set. As I capture the little spider, as I look up at the sky and the sun and I hear the wind, all of this is getting recorded with a thought that it would shed some light on a forest that isn't performing. A lot of times we ask the forest, oh, show me a flower the bloom, show me the amazing mushroom, show me the biggest tree. But most of life and most of forest is just what it is. So the video art piece is a year of 2022. It's Space Acres forest and it's going to live in a specific room at the symposium. It'll happen on Sunday. The lights will be dim. There's gonna be a large screen or projection of this video piece woven throughout the seasons. 

You'll hear the actual sound. Nothing is really doctored, just maybe the volume will be up. And I think there's gonna be a tea station and you can just come over and sit and chill out a little bit. And I think that is what it is at the end of the day. And I hope it really brings people, for me, a chance to connect….

And I think that's the thing, especially in these times, we're playing with a lot of boundaries...and the time is ripe. I mean, we're playing with boundaries of wellness and sickness. We're playing with boundaries of gender, we're playing with boundaries of borders, <laugh>. And it's not to say that all times, these are interesting times but again, these are our only times. And what we are working with now are some very palpable forces.

And I think herbalists are really in a unique position. There's a lot of knowledge there about what it means to be connected to the earth and to each other, and what are those very important tenets that do connect people to each other, whether or not it is through the lens of herbalism or through the lens of technology or through the lens of music, or you know, everyone wears multiple hats as herbalists. So I think that the very interesting thing for me in putting this piece out there into an amazing group of people like herbalists in the symposium, is really seeing how is something like this going to be experienced? How and what of it, what will people will take away from it? What kind of questions will they have when you bring a forest to a projection screen in the middle of a conference room and in a hotel?  And that's what I'm really excited about. Of course, all the other talks that I will be all at. So that's kind of the long short of it Nikimbre <laugh>. 

Nikimbre:  Well, Zarah, I thank you so much for this time. It's been very sweet and it leaves me intrigued yet still and there's a sense of openness for me as far as experiencing this virtual forest bathing experience. And I feel like I'm not the only one that feels that way that will be watching for those of who will be watching this interview to come. And so again, I thank you and I so look forward to the experience and meeting you in person at symposium and having some conversations.